“Invisible Sun” by The Police

"Invisible Sun" was the first single in Britain from the Police's fourth album, Ghost in the Machine, released in September 1981 on A&M, and it's one of the bleakest, most brooding things they ever put out on a single. Sting wrote it while living in Ireland during the Belfast hunger strikes, wanting to write about that time while still leaving some hope in it: the idea of a light you can't see but that has to be there.

The sound is dread made physical. Stewart Copeland holds back to a heavy, measured beat, Sting's bass throbs low, Andy Summers' guitar hangs in the air like smoke, and Sting's voice sounds hemmed in. Hugh Padgham engineered and co-produced it with the band. It reached number two in the UK, but in North and South America it was never released as a single.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.